Musing about my Life the Universe and Everything

The Flight Home

A flight with a child can always be worrisome. Thankfully A has always flown well. But on this last trip, things got a little crazy. The flight to Disney had been full so she sat in our laps and was super antsy, but finally slept for a little bit. Throughout the trip, she was very off schedule and had a hard time sleeping in the same room as us. So for the flight home, which was scheduled for 9 pm, we were a little nervous.

Midafternoon, we received notification that our flight had been delayed. By two hours. As you can imagine, we were thrilled (really need a sarcasm font here) to hear that. We got to the airport around 9 and after going through security, we settled in at the gate. This flight was to be largely empty so we knew that A would be able to sit in her car seat and hopefully sleep through the flight. At the gate however, she was super energetic and super cranky. So we let her get her energy out as much as possible. I sat there for almost 2 hours feeling the glares of my fellow passengers every time A cried.

After finally boarding the plane, we started to sit in a row and the two women directly behind us looked at A, and moved back several rows. I understood why, and was happier that they could and did move instead of sitting and complaining about us the whole time, but it still wasn’t a good feeling. Then, just as we settled in, the flight attendant told us that we couldn’t be within two rows of an emergency exit so we needed to move. So we did. Juggling, A, our carry ons, unbuckling and rebuckling the car seat… It was a process. Of course A, not liking the fact that we didn’t let her crawl all over any more was crying and super unhappy.

We finally settled into the new seat and the gentleman in front of us turned around and said the nicest thing. He said that he was a father too and we should not worry about him as he was more than used to anything that A could dish out. He said that he knew that flying with a baby can be not fun but that we should relax and everything would be fine. He was so nice.

It was really such a nice moment. We had been super frazzled with juggling A and all of our stuff, getting the car seat set up and still feeling the glares of our fellow flyers who were not looking forward to a flight with a crying baby. The words of this kind gentleman and fellow parent really helped.

We settled A in and she fell straight to sleep. Thank goodness!! She slept the whole flight, which was great since the pilot descended really quickly to try and make up for the delay and N and I were in tremendous pain until our ears finally popped. It was really bad. Gum, yawning, nothing helped for a really long time. I am so grateful that we did not have to deal with a screaming A at that time. And so grateful she did not experience it, as bad as it was for us, I don’t know how bad it would have been for my baby girl.

I had seen this video a few weeks before our trip but now it means a lot more, check it out.